By Tony
Wilbert, Wilbert News Strategies
ATLANTA (Aug. 9, 2010) - It's official: Atlanta's office market has "hit bottom," according to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the article, the AJC cited reports from CoStar, Grubb & Ellis and Jone Lang LaSalle saying Atlanta's office vacancy rate peaked (at 17 percent to 22 percent, depending on the source).
So what's next? Will the market begin an upward climb or bounce along the bottom for a while? We have seen some good signs such as the large leases signed recently in Buckhead. In Midtown, Carter represented landlord Manulife in Kilpatrick Stockton's renewal of more than 200,000 square feet at 1100 Peachtree.
News of
several of the six-figure office leases including Greenberg
Traurig at Terminus 200 (left) and GE Energy at Parkwood Point in
Cobb County has buoyed the spirits of owners and brokers, especially landlord and tenant
reps involved in the deals. However, last week's unemployment report shows the job growth needed to create
true net absorption probably won't materialize this year.
We should get
some insight this week when local business columnist Maria Saporta interviews
Cousins Properties CEO Larry Gellerstedt at the Databank
Symposium on Thursday. In June, Gellerstedt said Atlanta's
recovery remains "fragile and muted." It'll be interesting to hear
what he thinks two months later. (2010 generally has been a pretty good year
for REITs.)
It also will be interesting to hear from Georgia
State University economist Rajeev Dhawan has to say at the Databank Symposium.
In early 2009, Dhawan procrastinated that the national recession would not end until this year.
The Databank crowd, of course, will want Dhawan to tell them when the commercial real
estate market will turn.
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